Unreal Insanity
by MissHRF
Summary: Harry doesn’t answer because Harry isn’t there


He hears a chuckle behind him and it makes him smile.

He can't remember the last time Harry laughed. Truly laughed, loud and carefree, not the tight-lipped, stuttering sound that has passed his lips in more recent times. He twists his body sideways to look behind him and catching his eye, beams. Harry grins back and for the first time in months Ron has hope that everything is going to be okay, he can't remember the last time they acted like the teenagers they are and the sudden rush of happiness this action sparks in him takes his breath away.

"Come on, mate" He pants. Weeks of bed rest on the orders of the Medi-witches at St Mungos has left them both unfit and easily tired. It's an annoyance and one that they are both looking forward to being rid of. Ron marvels at the fact that a simple exercise such as climbing the stairs can sap his energy so quickly. "Hermione's coming tomorrow. She's really missed you" He feels a twinge of jealousy, "What do you want to do?"

Silence.

"Harry?" he questions, looking over his shoulder. His brow furrows in confusion and his lips purse together.

Harry isn't there.

It's amazing how quickly the years fly by yet returning to somewhere familiar can make is seem like no time has passed at all. Hogwarts remains unchanged even after all this time and this is enough to transport Ron back to his eleven year old self, quivering and anxiously awaiting the Sorting with his future best friend by his side, nervous and terrified in equal parts. He smiles at the memory and turns to Harry, grown up now, who's eyes are hungrily taking in the familiar walls, the same portraits, happily drinking in the memories that this familiar setting brings. Hogwarts was always Harry's home.

Without saying a word they both trace the familiar path to the Gryffindor common room. Their friendship is full of silences. Good silences, Ron decides. Not the awkward silence that follows a scolding from mum after an argument over who's turn it is to de-gnome the garden or the awkward silence that so often lapses between Hermione and him recently. No, the silences between them are the ones in which both people are confident in the knowledge that the silence is saying more than words could ever. Ron likes that. It's just how he imagined having a best mate would be.

They don't know the password. The thought occurs to Ron as soon as they turn the familiar bend towards the Fat Lady's portrait. She'll never let them in, never in all their seven years had she shown mercy to a student with a poor memory and they're no exception. He opens his mouth to remind him but Harry isn't there, he stops shortly.

The comforting silence that features so often between them is gone and is replaced with an emptiness that makes him uneasy. If Ron didn't know better, he'd say Harry had never been there at all.

Hermione's curled up on the sofa, her hair pulled haphazardly into a bun, twisting tendrils curling gently against her jaw in a way that makes Ron's fingers curl up in jealousy. A dusty book is held loosely in her hand and her head is gently bobbing as her eyes blur across the page. It's an image so familiar that it takes Ron a few moments to remember that they're sat in his living room, not the Gryffindor Common room as he'd so vividly imagined seconds ago. But still, the resemblance is close enough. Hermione poring over a book and him sprawled in the armchair daydreaming. The only thing that's missing is Harry and that strikes him as unusual. Harry's never been absent before yet when he tries to ask Hermione, she sits up sharply and fixes him with a steely glare.

"Don't to dare do this Ron. Don't you dare!" She looks so angry and upset that for a moment Ron feels guilty though he doesn't know what for.

"What?" He glances around. Recently Harry has had a habit of popping up at the most inopportune moments. "I don't know where he is"

Her anger goes as quickly as it came and her eyes suddenly brim with tears. She shoots him a look so mournful and so sad that it momentarily takes his breath away. By the time he regains his concentration she's across the room, flinging open the door and disappearing hastily, her hands angrily swiping tears from her face. Baffled he turns to Harry who's sitting on the sofa as if he's been there all along. They share a conspiratorial grin and suddenly Ron feels much better.

He ignores the calculating glances that Hermione keeps shooting him over dinner. Once or twice her mouth opens as if she is going to speak before deciding against it and closing it again. One time Ginny catches him talking to Harry in his bedroom and stares at him in such confusion that it would have been funny had it not been for the tears swiftly spilling from her eyes. Ginny's always been prone to over-reaction and she's never got over Harry. Remus approaches him as he's about to go swimming with Harry. "Ron, Harry's dead"

Don't be ridiculous.

He supposes he should feel some anger towards him, what an awful thing to say, but Remus has never been the same since the war, the loss of life has taken its toll on him, Hermione said.

Ron laughs.

What a ludicrous idea.

He's stood right here. Can't you see him?

Remus stares at him with some unknown emotion in his eyes.

After that he doesn't see Harry for days. At first it doesn't bother him very much, Harry has his own life after all. But Harry's never gone this long without talking before and that worries him. He's not at the Burrow. Ron knows it's silly but he searched it from bottom to top, Harry's been appearing in the most ridiculous places recently and he wouldn't rule out Harry making a spontaneous visit to the laundry room. He did that once, appeared in the laundry room, Ron was looking for a shirt when he suddenly heard Harry's laugh and whirled around and he was there. He hadn't even heard the door open.

Diagon Alley is packed with crowds, the type that Harry normally avoids. Ron looks anyway. Once he sees a flash of scruffy black hair and his heart leaps, but when he reaches him, it's a younger looking wizard, his face still screwed up in fright even after Ron lets him go.

That's been happening a lot recently. He's seeing Harry everywhere. A sudden flash of black hair or the glint from a pair of glasses sends his heart thumping wildly only for disappointment to swell up inside him when he sees it's not Harry.

He keeps searching.

He keeps searching and he doesn't realise its futile.

Harry isn't missing, he's gone.


End file.
